VirtualBox does not send Control key events to guest OS.
January 23rd, 2009
Now that's a strange one.
This is the case: you run Windows XP as a guest operating system in VirtualBox in your Ubuntu box. However, VirtualBox refuses to send events for the Control key (for example, if you press Ctrl-N Windows XP will just receive 'N').
It is possible that the problem is caused by a feature of Ubuntu rather than a bug in VirtualBox. Specifically you have to make sure that you have unchecked the Show position of pointer when the Control key is pressed.
Go to System → Preferences → Mouse → General. Make it look like this:
Showing the position of the pointer is neat feature but it seems that you have to live without it if you want Control key events to be passed in your VirtualBox guests...
This is the case: you run Windows XP as a guest operating system in VirtualBox in your Ubuntu box. However, VirtualBox refuses to send events for the Control key (for example, if you press Ctrl-N Windows XP will just receive 'N').
It is possible that the problem is caused by a feature of Ubuntu rather than a bug in VirtualBox. Specifically you have to make sure that you have unchecked the Show position of pointer when the Control key is pressed.
Go to System → Preferences → Mouse → General. Make it look like this:
Showing the position of the pointer is neat feature but it seems that you have to live without it if you want Control key events to be passed in your VirtualBox guests...
February 24th, 2009 at 8:11 pm Man, thanks for this. This was the last thing bugging me about running my virtualbox install.
July 23rd, 2009 at 1:58 am Thanks Giannis! It was an annoying issue not to be able of using copy & paste under WinXP as guest OS.
March 10th, 2010 at 3:29 am Tnx Man, now i can use my fav cltr-z!!!
December 16th, 2010 at 5:45 pm Thanks for posting this. My sanity has been restored.
January 18th, 2011 at 6:41 pm That fixed it for me. Thanks man!!
May 28th, 2011 at 6:48 pm thanks a lot. this is correct my problem. my guest os and host os both are ubuntu 11.04 desktop.
October 11th, 2011 at 10:24 am Perfekt post to help me!
October 25th, 2011 at 11:44 pm I was wondering why this behaviour, thanks for the post, it helped.
January 19th, 2012 at 1:53 am This is the best post ever!